Julia in central Indiana grew up hearing nibby for someone who snoops or gets into other people’s business. The more common spelling is nebby, a Western Pennsylvania term that fits her family’s earlier move from Pennsylvania into Ohio and Indiana. It apparently goes back to dialect nib or neb, meaning “nose,” in Scotland, Ireland, and northern England, so a nibby person is sticking their nose where it doesn’t belong. It’s not related to the Yiddish nebbish. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Nibby” and “Nebby”: Two Spellings for Being Nosy”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, my name’s Julia. I’m calling from Indiana, central Indiana.
I’m looking for the origin of an expression that I grew up with, and I’ve traveled a lot and have only heard it in my particular area.
And it’s Nibby, N-I-B-B-Y, I assume that’s how you would spell it.
And it means basically to get into something you’re not supposed to be in.
Either you’re snooping in somebody’s stuff or you are getting into someone else’s business where you don’t belong.
As in, we would use it, you’re being too nibby or you’re nibbing into something you’re not supposed to be in.
Interesting. And you are from central Indiana?
I am.
And are your parents from there as well?
They are, and on my mother’s side, the origin would have been western Ohio, central Indiana, and they are of German descent, if that matters.
Interesting.
That fits pretty well with what we know about Nibby, which is really concentrated in Pennsylvania.
I don’t know if you have any Pennsylvania connections as well.
Yes.
A few generations back, they would have come from Pennsylvania down into western Ohio and into Indiana.
Okay, well, that sounds about right, because what we know about nibby is that it’s generally concentrated in western Pennsylvania.
It shows up very well on dialect maps that way.
And the idea apparently goes back to an old word for nose.
Nib or neb in Scotland and Ireland and northern England, which sent a lot of people over there to that part of the country, use nib or neb as a word for nose.
And so if you’re sticking your nose in something all the time, then you’re nibby.
So you are literally, if you’re nibby, you’re nebby, you’re nosy.
It makes sense to me.
That’s fabulous.
And the more common spelling these days is nebby.
And it’s still widely used in the United Kingdom, although it’s a dialect word and not mainstream English.
So you might talk about sticking your neb into something or sticking your nib into something.
And if you do, you’re nibby.
And you’re sticking your nose into something.
Exactly.
Perfectly understandable.
Well, thank you very much.
That clears it up for me.
It was just a question I really never had an answer to.
Well, our pleasure.
Thanks for calling, Julia.
-huh.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Boy, those Scots just keep turning out the words, don’t they?
They do.
So it’s related to the nib of a pen, which is the point of a pen.
Yeah.
So call HisNibsAndMe if you have a question about language, 877-929-9673.
re. neb/nib to mean nose
The words for “beak” (as in a bird’s beak) in the Scandinavian languages is:
næb (Danish), näbb (Swedish), nebb (Norwegian).
I think the origin of the word would be pretty obvious for someone who speaks Swedish, Danish or Norwegian –especially as Martha points out that it is primarily associated with northern England and Scotland, the parts of present-day UK that were most influenced by invasion and settlement from Scandinavia.
In modern Swedish, näbb means the beak (of a bird). The modern Scandinavian words for nose (näsa) are not very similar to neb/nib, but then then Nordic influence on English was happening about 1000 years ago..
I’ve always guessed that the verb “nab” (as in to catch, grab, snatch) is somehow also derived from the Scandinavian næb/näbb/nebb, maybe an association with the way birds grab objects with their beaks.
On a related subject, in many cases I hear the origin of many English words attributed to German, when the link to Scandinavian languages seems to be more obvious. Etymologists often seem to be reaching past the more-obvious Norse links to try to find an association with German. I just assume it is probably due to the fact that English speakers are much more likely to be familiar with German than Swedish, Danish or Norwegian. Of course, over the centuries, the evolution of the English language has been very deeply influenced by both Germanic and Scandinavian people, though I think the Scandinavian influence is more recent.